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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   837 thread views

Transnational Thursday for July 24, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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About a year ago, in a discussion of Ireland's rabid support for the Palestinian cause, I argued that it's primarily caused by misguided post-colonial solidarity and that "I've never gotten the feeling that Ireland is an antisemitic country".

That's a position I'm now revisiting:

A Jewish man was hit by a stranger shouting antisemitic insults on a Dublin city bus on Friday [the 18th of July], according to a video circulating on social media. The assailant shouted “genocidal Jews” and other slurs at the man.

He also said he recognized that the man was a Jew “because of his face.” The Jewish man – who recorded the incident – can be heard saying, “I get used to it; they are all like this.”...

The assailant then slapped the Jewish man in the face and tried to take his phone.

Comments on social media said the driver called the police and that the man was arrested.

An officer told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that it does not comment on material circulated online by third parties but confirmed that “shortly after 11 p.m. on Friday, 18 July 2025, [police officers] from Rathmines responded to reports of a disturbance on a bus in Rathgar, Dublin.”

For reference, Rathgar is a very posh suburb, with houses going for €1 million at the minimum.

A few weeks ago, my dad quoted some Israeli politician (whose name escapes me) at me who supposedly claimed that his proudest achievement was drawing an equivocation between anti-Zionism and antisemitism in the public consciousness. I accept that the two are not strictly equivalent, but I don't think anyone can dispute anymore (in Ireland or anywhere else) that the former can often serve as a cover for the latter. I am quite confident that the assailant made no effort to ascertain his victim's political affiliation (i.e. whether or not he was one of the "good Jews") before harassing and assaulting him.

As an aside, I can't help but marvel at how self-defeating this behaviour is. Whenever you assault someone because they look like they might be Jewish, you are precisely demonstrating Israel's entire raison d'être, the moral necessity of its existence.

For reference, Rathgar is a very posh suburb, with houses going for €1 million at the minimum.

Does a 1 million price flooe make something a 'very posh suburb' in Dublin? That sounds just like your regular middle-class suburb for a European capital.

Are house prices really that low in Dublin? I thought there was a tech driven housing crisis.

At a cursory inspection, 1 million was the cheapest I could find, but far from the average: many houses were a significant multiple of that. Rathgar is posh but admittedly not as posh as, say, Foxrock.

I thought there was a tech driven housing crisis.

There is, although I prefer the term "shortage" to "crisis".

I'm getting a 403 from the website, can we get a check on Coulter's law? The quoted parts seem a bit cagey about the identity of "the assailant".

A few weeks ago, my dad quoted some Israeli politician (whose name escapes me) at me who supposedly claimed that his proudest achievement was drawing an equivocation between anti-Zionism and antisemitism in the public consciousness. I accept that the two are not strictly equivalent, but I don't think anyone can dispute anymore that the former can often serve as a cover for the latter,

Another way to look at is: if you can't be anti-zionist without being antisemitic, because someone decided to draw an equivocation in the public consciousness that they're extremely proud of, there might come a point when they say "well, I guess that means I'm anti-semitic now".

That said, yeah, I feel the vibes have shifted on this, and it does feel kind of spooky.

I'm getting a 403 from the website, can we get a check on Coulter's law?

I believe this is the video in question.

I'm getting a 403 from the website

I wonder if it's a region-locked thing. Annoyingly, Internet Archive doesn't have it. Here's the full text anyway.

can we get a check on Coulter's law? The quoted parts seem a bit cagey about the identity of "the assailant".

Yeah, I'd be curious about that myself. I would be surprised if the assailant turns out to be a white Irishman, but I can't say it's wholly outside the realm of possibility.

I am quite confident that the assailant made no effort to ascertain his victim's political affiliation (i.e. whether or not he was one of the "good Jews") before harassing and assaulting him.

Sadly, no one ever does. Woke activists in the 2010s had absolutely no interest in finding out your exact views on race and sex before calling for your firing as a white man. As with Chinese Cardiologists, humans free-associate and they do it with a broad brush.

Broadly it seems that there is a cycle of persecution:

  • Jews feel under threat.
  • They take unusually stringent overt and covert actions to defend themselves.
  • This makes them increasingly unpopular.
  • Rinse and repeat.

Does the existence of Jew-punchers on the bus suggest that they need their own state and should do whatever it takes to keep it? Yes.

Does the existence and behaviour of Israel/Mossad etc. push more people further towards such behaviour? Also yes.

Does the existence and behaviour of Israel/Mossad etc. push more people further towards such behaviour? Also yes.

How exactly does one Irish Jew minding his own business on a Dublin bus bear any responsibility for the actions of Netanyahu and Mossad? The implication that all Jews are collectively responsible for the actions of any individual Jew is about as close to a textbook definition of "racism" as I can envision.

I’m not making a legal case. I’m observing how, in practice, events and associations change public perceptions. And of course those perceptions change most sharply in the violent and unstable.

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